College Student Tracking Assailed

Private colleges yesterday fired a rather noisy shot across the bow of an education proposal aimed at keeping closer tabs on institutions of higher learning through a new national database of student records.
"Is there some reason to reverse three decades of [privacy] policy and go down this Orwellian road?" asked Christopher B. Nelson, the president of St. John's College, during a conference call with reporters to call attention to a new survey on the subject.
The controversial concept of a national student "unit" tracking system has been floating around for about two years. It was given a boost last month when Education Secretary Margaret Spellings's Commission on the Future of Higher Education released a draft report endorsing such a

Read on